2017 was a big year of growth for Turboweb - 11th Jan 2018

It’s 2018 already! Wow. 2017 was a big year for Turboweb with lots of exciting growth within the company and the big move to our new premises in Kaikorai Valley.

Sarah Moffit Project Co-Ordinator at Turboweb

In 2017, we welcomed Sarah Moffitt as Project Co-ordinator. Sarah M is doing an amazing job and keeps every step of your website on track including graphic design, content writing, custom development, etc.

Jen Pearce Content Co-ordinator at Turboweb

Our content writing service has become so popular that Jen Pearce joined our team as Content Co-ordinator mid-year and does an epic job managing our team of content writers. Jen also manages some of our clients’ overall online presence, and we’ve seen growth there. It’s a great option for those clients who just want us to ‘take the pain away’, leaving them to do what they do best – run their business.

Gaylene Buchanan Sales Consultant - Southland & South Otago

Gaylene has been working for Turboweb for a little over four years now. The first year she delivered a handful of Christmas cards to clients. This year she gave out a mountain of cards! Gaylene says, “That's such an awesome feeling; that we are helping so many businesses get on a path to goodness. And yes, I suffered a lot of writer’s cramp!”

Sarah Walters - Business Development

Sarah W is now in charge of Business Development. This allows Sarah W to concentrate on improving Turboweb further, creating things such as new photography packages and new brochures just released. This helps us meet our clients’ needs better, and better serve you.

Bob Brown and Stefan Peters - Web Developers at Turboweb

Bob and Stefan in our development team helped us build a lot of cool things in 2017. Some highlights were developing a system for tanker drivers to easily upload data on fuel levels in real time, enhancing the running of the fleet. We also developed a sales portal for staff on the go, that stores all client history, so that sales staff can more easily meet their customers’ needs, even when working in remote areas without internet access. Stefan had an exciting end to 2017, with the birth of his first child just before Christmas.
We helped a lot of clients launch new websites, while continuing to help our clients boost their online presence. We helped a lot of clients with revamps, improvements to online content, or took the pain away entirely, through managing their whole online presence (including social media, e-newsletters, promotions and website content).

Paul Southworth - Turboweb Managing Director

A highlight for Paul this year was developing a full brand and marketing package for Fiordland Jet, which included all collateral (website, business cards, logo, branding across jet boats and buildings and a promotional video), at the end of last year. It proved to be an exciting and rewarding project.

The Year Ahead for Turboweb

In 2018, we’re working on making Turboweb awesome, so our clients can get an awesome experience from us, and have a fantastic online presence that brings them ongoing business. Big thanks for supporting us in 2017, and we’re looking forward to an exciting 2018 with you.

Getting started on social media for your business in New Zealand - 9th Jan 2018

Thinking of dipping your toes into the world of social media but don’t know where to start for your business? Turboweb have some pointers on how you can get started.

Why be on Social Media in New Zealand?

Doubters may ask; why even bother? Well, two thirds of New Zealand internet users use social media every day, with kiwis now spending half of their media consumption time online (instead of TV, newspapers, radio, or magazines). Facebook is New Zealand’s second most popular online destination, after Google, and according to Neilson, the place where kiwis spend the majority of their time online, spending over 10 hours of their life on Facebook every month.
So now that we’ve established that it’s a big audience of kiwis on social media, what platform should your business go with?

As a business in New Zealand, what social media should we be on?

We know, there’s just so much out there – Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Youtube, Snapchat, Pinterest, etc. Well, let’s be geeks, and look at the stats before jumping in. In NZ, according to Nielsen Online Ratings, the majority of kiwis are on Facebook – with over 2 million kiwis, next is Youtube, with over 2 million as well, while Pinterest comes in third with over 700,000, followed by Twitter, LinkedIn, and then Instagram.

Facebook 2,689,000

YouTube 2,236,000

Pinterest 727,000

Twitter 600,000

LinkedIn 561,000

Instagram 489,000

Looking at the stats, it looks like Facebook and Youtube are your best bet, as they have the biggest audience, but some platforms are fantastic for certain kinds of businesses, or cater more to different age groups. For example, if your audience is under 25s, we’d recommend Snapchat (depending on your business), as that’s where all the young ones are. If you’re a photographer, or foodie, your business could do incredibly well on Instagram. While LinkedIn is great for businesses that are big on networking and ideal for individuals who do a lot of business to business, such as recruitment.

Okay, I get it, I should be on social media but how do I get started?

Turboweb are here to help get your social media set up and can work with you to make sure your business is represented properly on your chosen networks. But a word of warning, it’s not advisable to just set and forget your social media accounts. That’s one reason why we might say, concentrate on one or two and do it right.

Facebook for business in New Zealand

With Facebook you might already have a business page that you can claim, to do this you will have to have a personal Facebook account. We recommend having more than one staff member on a Facebook page, just in case anything was to happen. You’ll need some photos to go with your page – an image that will fit nicely into a circle shape for the profile image, and a banner image in the least. Other basic info that goes with a Facebook page is things like opening hours – and remember to have these up to date across your Google listing, website and Facebook page – no one likes turning up to a shut-up shop.

Youtube for business in New Zealand

Youtube is a video platform. With Youtube you need to have a Google account, as Youtube is now part of the Google network. Youtube videos can then be embedded in your website, so you can share videos on Youtube anywhere on your website.

How Turboweb can help your business grow online with Social Media

If all this sounds like too much, feel free to give us a call, and Turboweb can help get you set up as a business on Facebook, and across any social platform, we can also help you optimise your social media channels, like Youtube to get better results. We can also help with your first impression – getting our design team to perfect your brands image across social media.

Turboweb can also take all the pain away and manage your social media for you, setting realistic growth targets and marketing plans for the year to come. Get started on turbocharging your social media today. We work with a range of businesses across Otago, Southland, and Balclutha to establish their social media and to do continued online marketing with them. Contact Turboweb.

Smart ways to start on your website content - 9th Jan 2018

It’s a new year, and a new you (not really), and maybe it’s time for a new website. But where to start?

So, you’ve decided to get cracking on the website. Great! But it comes to thinking about the content for your website and you get stuck. Maybe you know your business inside and out, but instead of finding it easy to write about, you have one of those 20-minutes-spent-staring-at-your-screen-moments. That’s where Turboweb are here to help. We have a team of content writers that can help you get your website up and running. Usually the content writer just needs a quick chat and a basic idea around the key service areas and content for your website before writing something up for you to approve.

To help if you’re struggling to find ideas for a news item or content for your website yourself, here’s some tips and tricks to get you started.

Bullet point it.

Bullet points are great for our content writers to work from, send them a clear list and let them work their magic. Bullet points are great for using with products or services. The ‘next generation’ coming through apparently read a page by initially scanning it for information, rather than reading it from left to right, and love bullet point lists. Bullet points also keep it succinct and are great for feeding search engines. Bullet points are great for running through a process (eg. How to cast glass) or for product features.

Be the answer

First up, ask yourself, what will someone searching for my website be asking Google? Answering questions your consumer will be asking could put you at the top of search engines. For example, if you sell septic tanks, why not answer the question; how do I spot septic tank failure? Asking questions can be a great way to hook in readers too. Think about things that customers always ring you on the phone about – could this be answered somewhere on your website? For example, they could always ask “how long will this appointment take?” or “what’s the postage?” these are things that can easily be answered on your website, instead of taking time away from staff. More and more users are coming into websites through long form searches in search engines such as google (what this means is they’re searching sentences such as “how do I…” and expecting answers, rather than searching just key words).

Get your subject and structure straight

Having a clear idea of your subject for each page and sticking to it is key to lowering your bounce rate (visitors who quickly leave your webpage). After all, if you were looking for apples, and someone served up oranges, you’d be disappointed too. Having a clear structure to your website, so that users can easily navigate to the information they are after is also key. It can help to initially write out or even draw up the website structure, so you know exactly where everything is, before starting the process. People often don’t come straight into your homepage when initially viewing your website either, they might come in via a subpage on a particular topic, so having a clear structure and easily navigable website is crucial.

Think about what you want to do more of

What could really make your business get rolling? Is there something that if you sold more of it, your business would be better off? Then think about what people looking for that product or service would be interested in finding out when searching online – and there’s your content. Think about making that service prominent on your homepage, and writing up several supporting pages of content that feed back into that product or service.

Pictures tell a thousand words, but a thousand words feed SEO

Don’t be shy about having content on your website. Text is needed to feed search engines and provide information for visitors. If you think a page is looking too full of words, consider breaking it up with headings and sub headings, bullet points, using images, tables and other media (such as video) to mix up the content. Ideally for best practice we recommend over 400 words per page, to pick up some good SEO.

Here at Turboweb, we know it’s often difficult to write about yourself, or your business, and businesses simply don’t have the time to write the content for their website, they’re busy doing what they do best – running their business! That’s why we offer a content writer service. Our content writers also know the best practices around writing for the web and little tweaks that mean you can get the best out of your content. To get started on turbocharging your online content contact Turboweb today.

Turboweb Christmas Hours - 13th Dec 2017

Turboweb will be closing at 12pm on Thursday the 21st of December and will reopen at 9am on Monday the 8th of January 2018.
Wishing you all a safe and Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!
If you’re lucky enough to get a new phone over Christmas, but are struggling to set up your email – here’s Turboweb's email settings (you lucky thing!).
If you’re really stuck, urgent support is only available over the Christmas break via phone. Call us on 0800 TURBOWEB (03 474 5953) or email us on support@turboweb.co.nz and we’ll get back to you as soon as possible.
Happy holidays! - Turboweb

Turboweb's Simple Web Manager - 24th Nov 2017

What is Simple Web Manager?

Simple Web Manager (SWM) is the website platform and Content Management System (CMS) developed by Turboweb with the every day user in mind. A CMS is the foundation of your website, where all your content, images, products and website information are stored.

What are the benefits of Turboweb's Simple Web Manager?

There’s a lot of benefits to using Turboweb’s Simple Web Manager. SWM is used by a wide variety of people, it’s flexible, customisable and most importantly – easy to use. Businesses, groups and individuals can easily use it and work collaboratively on a website.

You don’t need to know any complex code, or pay for a developer for small website changes. Small changes to content or images can easily be done in SWM, with a few clicks, by you. For example, product price changes or new images – within a few clicks that information can be changed.

Image resizing and fitting to mobile is automatic. SWM will automatically resize your images to fit in with your website and automatically make your website work well across mobile. No fancy coding or image resizing needed by you. This means it’s easy for you and your staff to update images, products and additional information as your business changes.

Professional looking websites. SWM works with a wide variety of designs. You’ll be surprised at the variation of websites that work across the SWM platform. It’s incredibly flexible, and most importantly, your design can be set from the get go, and not easily broken.

Not only that, but anywhere there is internet you can edit your website by simply logging in. Changes in product pricing or staff are easy to update. Amounts of unwanted spam are diminished by secure contact forms, no more unwanted enquiries. Simple Web Manager is just that, simple to use and very reasonably priced to get your business online. If interested phone us today on 0800 TURBOWEB.

Mailchimp - if you can't beat em', join em' - 24th Nov 2017

MailChimp is a popular third-party platform that allows people interested in your work or products to subscribe and unsubscribe to mailing lists through a sign-up (or subscribe) form on your website.

Turboweb’s Simple Web Manager platform has always had its own basic mailing list functionality, however an increasing number of our clients (and ourselves) are now making use of MailChimp to send regular updates, newsletters, and promotions to their clients.

MailChimp is free if you have under 2000 subscribers and is super easy to use - allowing you to build templates, add images, link to products, and get feedback on how many people have interacted with your mailout (or campaign).

So how do you get started with Mailchimp through Turboweb?

• Create a new MailChimp account here https://mailchimp.com/
• Contact Turboweb by calling 0800 887 269 or email support@turboweb.co.nz providing your new MailChimp details and we will take care of the rest (NB: Integration fee of $67.50+GST applies)
• Now, get to work creating your first mailout masterpiece

Why profile staff on your website? - 31st Oct 2017

This is a question we get asked a lot a Turboweb. There’s a lot of advantages to profiling staff on your website, and we’ll cover some major pointers here. When it comes down to it, having staff photos and names on your About Us page gives credibility to your business and lets potential customers know that when it comes down to it, they are working with a real person.

Profiles build a connection to your business

Your website is a blank canvas, profiles create the emotion and connection that people get from dealing with people. The age old saying ‘’people do business with people” is so true here. Profiling staff builds trust in your business. It’s much easier to do business with people over the phone if you have a visual of what they look like, and having profiles can often direct people to who is the right person to call, saving your business time.

Profiles show off your staff

One of your staff may have a specialised talent, or work experience that adds to their current position, and so the credibility of your company. Showcasing your staff also helps build staff moral, as people feel valued by the business. Not only that, but potential employees, especially of generation X, are guaranteed to google your business and look at your staff profiles. Showcasing your staff, and new opportunities or skills that people can learn through your business, is a great advertisement to potential employees.

Profiles no longer need to be simple passport style photos

Profile photos no longer need to be a simple ‘passport style’ photo. Think about doing a group staff photo, or action shots – these work particularly well for shy staff behind the camera. For example, if you had building staff, they could be using a hammer or saw, or wait staff holding plates, or a barista behind a coffee machine. Action shots can give a great feel to the business.

Who should you profile on your website?

Profiles should be kept up to date. Our Simple Web Manager platform makes it simple and easy to add new staff, but we do recommend keeping photos as consistent as possible to keep your website looking professional. Asking yourself which staff deal with outside customers in day to day can help with deciding who to profile – as these people are customer facing, they’re a good start.

What Makes a Good Meta Description? - 30th Oct 2017

The meta description (or “snippet”) explained

A meta description or page description is the small snippet of text that appears under search results and is basically a short describer of the associated page. It should not only contain keywords to assist with page ranking, but should also be readable and entice searchers to click your link.

With our Simple Web Manager websites, you can edit these “snippets” via the website administration to give your website an edge over your competitors. We have listed a few tips to help you create great “snippets”.

How long should a meta description be?

Google determines the length of snippets shown, however they are normally between 135 to 160 characters (we have limited this field in your admin to 160 characters). Recently Google have been trialling longer snippets, but these are not common and not yet industry standard.

Make Meta Descriptions Active and Actionable

The meta description or snippet is an invitation to the page, so make it just that, inviting and enticing and not passive. It should include a call-to -action, like in the example above “Call Justin at Quantum Concrete now for a free quote 027-8615511.”

Think about your Audience when Writing Meta Descriptions

If you have a new product for the tech savvy, consider listing the key specs in the meta description, like price point, key features etc. Think about what would entice that person click your link in a page full of search results.

Your Meta Description Should Match the Content on the Page

This is important. Google and other search engines will penalise results that it sees as duplicates or with unrelated content to the page. You want the meta description to match the content on the page. Nothing annoys a potential customer more than clicking a link when searching for fridges to find they have been duped into visiting a page selling toasters.

The Meta Description should Contain the Focus Keywords for that page

If the search keywords match text in the meta description, Google will be more inclined to use that meta description and highlight it in search results. This could put your result further up the page, meaning more views, more clicks, and more clients for you. Relating your titles, meta description, and page content will all lead to a healthy page that search engines will love and rank highly.

If in doubt, leave it out

It is really important to take the time to create unique meta descriptions for each page wherever possible as this will improve your page rankings and click-through success. As mentioned in an earlier point, Google and other search engines will penalise results that it sees as duplicates, so rather than creating sub-standard, duplicate meta descriptions, leave the field blank and Google (and other search engines) will automatically pick a suitable snippet from the page content.